Citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, show buildings damaged during battles between the rebels and the Syrian government forces, in the Salaheddine neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, Monday May 20, 2013. Fierce street fighting in a Syrian town near the Lebanese border has killed at least 28 elite members of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group, activists said Monday, as Syrian government forces pushed deeper into the strategic, opposition-held town. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center, AMC)

In this Saturday, May 18, 2013 citizen journalism image provided by Qusair Lens which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Syrians inspecting the rubble of damaged buildings due to government airstrikes, in Qusair, Homs province, Syria. The town of Qusair has been besieged for weeks by regime troops and pro-government gunmen backed by the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group. The siege is part of a withering offensives forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad have been pushing in recent weeks to regain control of the towns and villages along the Lebanese frontier. (AP Photo/Qusair Lens)

BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah was pulled more deeply into Syria's civil war as 28 guerrillas from the Lebanese Shiite militant group were killed and dozens more wounded while fighting rebels, Syria activists said Monday.

The intense battle drove rebels from large parts of the town ofQusair, part of a withering government offensive aimed at securing a strategic land corridor from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast.

Hezbollah-affiliated hospitals in Lebanon urged blood donations through mosque loudspeakers and ambulances raced along the Damascus road in a stark indication of the group's increasingly prominent role in Syria.

The overt Hezbollah involvement — several funerals for group members were held Monday in Lebanon — edges the war further into a regional sectarian conflict pitting the Middle East's Iranian-backed Shiite axis against Sunnis.

It also raised tensions considerably in Lebanon, where Hezbollah has come under harsh criticism for its involvement in the civil war next door.

A staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hezbollah is heavily invested in the survival of the Damascus regime and is known to have sent fighters to aid government forces. The Iranian-backed group's growing role in the conflict also points to the deeply sectarian nature of the war in Syria, in which a rebellion driven by the country's Sunni majority seeks to overthrow a regime dominated by Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Clashes continued for the second day in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon, where Sunnis and Alawites battled in a direct spillover from the fighting in Qusair.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks Syria's civil war, said that more than 70 Hezbollah fighters have also been wounded in the fighting around Qusair.

The White House said President Barack Obama telephoned Lebanon's president and expressed concern about Hezbollah's "active and growing role in Syria, fighting on behalf of the Assad regime, which is counter to the Lebanese government's policies."

More than 70,000 people have been killed and several million displaced since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011 and escalated into a civil war. The Syrian government and Hezbollah deny there is an uprising in Syria, portraying the war as a foreign-backed conspiracy driven by Israel, the U.S. and its gulf Arab allies.

In addition to the Hezbollah involvement, Iraqi Shiite fighters have for months trickled into Syria. Their relatives say they are drawn by a sense of religious duty to protect Shiite Muslim shrines in Syria.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in a recent speech that his fighters had a duty to protect the shrines. He also claims that supporters of the group were fighting in Shiite villages near the Lebanon border against the rebels, saying it was in self-defense.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, cited unidentified "sources close to the militant group" for its Hezbollah death toll Monday. It said at least 50 Syrian rebels also were killed in the battle for Qusair on Sunday.

Qusair has been the target of a Syrian government offensive in recent weeks, and the surrounding countryside has been engulfed in fighting as regime troops backed by Hezbollah fighters seized villages while closing in on Qusair itself.

The intensity of the fighting reflects the importance that both sides attach to the area. In the regime's calculations, Qusair is strategically located between Damascus and the Alawite heartland near the Mediterranean. For the rebels, overwhelmingly Sunni Qusair has served as a conduit for shipments of weapons and supplies smuggled from Lebanon to opposition fighters inside Syria.

A Lebanese official close to Hezbollah told The Associated Press that the death toll figures were "exaggerated." He added, however, that 14 Hezbollah members from southern Lebanon were killed in the fighting Sunday, adding that some of the fighters' bodies were still in Syria. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from Hezbollah, which maintains a shroud of secrecy on its security operations.

Evidence of the group's heavy involvement in Syria was on full display Monday.

In the town of Nabi Sheet in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold, about 2,000 people attended the funeral of Hassan Shukur, an 18-year-old Hezbollah fighter.

Hezbollah comrades fired in the air in mourning and played the group's funeral march as they carried Shukur's coffin draped in a yellow Hezbollah flag through the streets at his funeral attended by senior members of the group.

"We will fight in all of Syria because we are fighting the Israeli enemy," said Sheik Mohammed Yazbeck, a member of Hezbollah's highest decision-making body, the Shura Council.

Shukur is the son of a Hezbollah official and a nephew of the head of the Lebanese branch of Syria's ruling Baath Party. He was among several group members who were buried Monday.

The funeral in Nabi Sheet marked a rare acknowledgment by the group of its direct involvement in the Syria fighting.

In recent weeks, the group has held several low-key funerals in Lebanon for gunmen who it said were killed while "performing their jihadi duties," without saying where or how they were killed.

In a sign of solidarity, Syria's Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, the country's top state-appointed Sunni Muslim cleric and an Assad loyalist, toured the families of slain Hezbollah members in south Lebanon on Monday.

On the mountain road linking Beirut with the Syrian border, ambulances carrying paramedics from Hezbollah's Islamic Health Organization raced up and down the motorway, apparently bringing the group's casualties into Lebanon.

Lebanese security officials said about 300 paramedics had undergone intensive training recently by Iranian experts in the Bekaa Valley on how to evacuate wounded fighters involved in street battles. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give official statements.

In Hezbollah's stronghold south of Beirut, people were urged through Shiite mosque loudspeakers to donate blood at the nearby Rasoul al-Azam hospital. In the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, residents were called upon to donate blood at the group's Ragheb Harb hospital in the nearby village of Toul.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a top Sunni Lebanese leader, accused Hezbollah of "leading Lebanon to the abyss."

The fighting in Qusair sparked battles between Sunni gunmen and Alawite fighters in Tripoli, Lebanon's second-largest city, that left at least two people dead and 26 wounded, Lebanese security officials said.

Regime troops and Hezbollah fighters, who laid siege to Qusair weeks ago, launched an offensive to regain control of the town, with Hezbollah's fighters advancing from the east and south, a Syrian opposition figure said.

He added that it took Hezbollah troops a few hours to take control of the town's main square and municipal building. By the end of the day Sunday, they had pushed out rebel units, including the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, from most of Qusair, he said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by both sides.

He said fighting was focused in the northern part of the town on Monday.

The account matched that of Syria's state news media, which said Assad's troops took control of most of Qusair on Monday. State-run TV said forces restored stability to the entire eastern front of the town, killing scores of "terrorists" — the term used by the Syrian regime to refer to all rebels.

An official in the Homs governor's office told the AP that more than 60 percent of the city is in government hands after scores of gunmen were killed or surrendered Sunday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to give information to the media during an ongoing military operation, said more than 1,500 residents fled the city due to intense fighting.

Qusair-based opposition activist Hadi Abdullah denied official reports that the army was advancing in the town, saying they were still trying to storm it.

"They go in and out. Until now I can say with confidence that they have not been able to enter the town and stay there," Abdullah said.

An amateur video released by rebels showed the body of a bearded dead man with a tattoo of a Shiite saint on his arm.

A local commander who was identified as Muwaffaq Abul-Sous said: "We the people of Qusair have decided to make the city Hezbollah's graveyard." He added that rebels killed about 30 Syrian soldiers and Hezbollah fighters. The video appeared consistent with AP reporting.

Ibrahim Bayram, an expert on Shiite affairs who writes about Hezbollah for Lebanon's An-Nahar newspaper, said the group has decided to join the battle in Syria "having calculated the results."

"It is a strategic decision for Hezbollah, which sees the battle in Syria as part of its own battle against Israel," he said.

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By R.J. Young

MOORE, Oklahoma (Reuters) - A huge tornado with winds of up to 200 miles per hour devastated the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on Monday, ripping up at least two elementary schools and a hospital and leaving a wake of tangled wreckage.

At least four people were killed, KFOR television said, citing a reporter's eyewitness account, and hospitals said dozens of people were injured as the dangerous storm system threatened as many as 10 U.S. states with more twisters.

Television video showed tracts of homes destroyed, cars tossed about and piled atop one another, and at least one building on fire.

Rescue workers pulled third-graders from the devastated Plaza Towers Elementary school in Moore, a KFOR television reporter said from the scene, and aerial video showed first responders sifting through the rubble left behind.

"I have never seen anything like this in my 18 years covering tornadoes here in Oklahoma City. This is without question the most horrific," said Lance West, a reporter for KFOR.

Briarwood Elementary School, which also stood in the storm's path, was all but destroyed. On the first floor, sections of walls had been peeled away, affording clear views into the building, while in other areas, cars hurled by the storm winds were lodged in the walls.

While the school was a wreck, nearby playground equipment stood undamaged, though littered with rubble.

Across the street, people picked through the remains of their homes, looking for any possessions they might salvage.

The National Weather Service assigned the twister a preliminary ranking of EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, meaning the second most powerful category of tornado with winds up to 200 mph.

At least 45 people were injured, according to officials of four hospitals.

"They (injured) are coming in minute by minute," said Integris Southwest Medical Center spokeswoman Brooke Cayot. Of the 19 injured there, seven were in critical condition, seven serious and five listed as fair or good, Cayot said.

The University of Oklahoma Medical Center had received at least 20 injured. St. Anthony Healthplex South in Oklahoma City said it received four patients and Midwest Regional received four.

Moore Medical Center sustained significant damage.

"The whole city looks like a debris field," Glenn Lewis, the mayor of Moore, told NBC.

"It looks like we have lost our hospital. I drove by there a while ago and it's pretty much destroyed," Lewis said.

The massive twister struck at the height of tornado season, and more were forecast. On Sunday, tornadoes killed two people and injured 39 in Oklahoma.

Witnesses said Monday's tornado appeared more fierce than the giant twister that was among the dozens that tore up the region on May 3, 1999, killing more than 40 people and destroying thousands of homes. That tornado ranked as an EF5, meaning it had winds over 200 mph.

The 1999 event ranks as the third-costliest tornado in U.S. history, having caused more than $1 billion in damage at the time, or more than $1.3 billion in today's dollars. Only the devastating Joplin and Tuscaloosa tornadoes in 2011 were more costly.

OTHER STATES THREATENED

The National Weather Service predicted a 10 percent chance of tornadoes in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois. It said parts of four other states - Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Iowa - have a 5 percent risk of tornadoes.

The area at greatest risk includes Joplin, Missouri, which on Wednesday will mark two years since a massive tornado killed 161 people.

The latest tornado in Oklahoma came as the state was still recovering from a strong storm on Sunday with fist-sized hail and blinding rain.

Two men in their 70s died in the storm, including one at a mobile home park on the edge of the community of Bethel Acres near Oklahoma City, said Keli Cain, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Office of Emergency Management. Thirty-nine people were injured around the state as storms toppled trees and tore up rooftops, she said.

Several hundred homes and buildings were thought to have been damaged or destroyed and approximately 7,000 customers were left without power in Oklahoma. "There is definitely quite a bit of damage," Cain said.

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin declared 16 counties disaster areas.

More than two dozen tornadoes were spotted in Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and local news reports. Hail stones, some as large as baseballs, were reported from Georgia to Minnesota, NOAA said.

The tornado season in the United States had been unusually quiet until last week, when a tornado struck the town of Granbury, Texas, killing six people.

(Additional reporting by Lindsay Morris, Carey Gillam, Nick Carey, and Brendan O'Brien; Writing by Greg McCune and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Jim Loney)

Radical Islamist movement Ansar al-Shariah supporters clash with Tunisian police officers after Tunisia's Interior Ministry on Friday banned their annual conference supposed to be held in Kairouan, in Ettadhamen, near Tunis, Sunday May 19, 2013. Massive numbers of Tunisian police and army surrounded Tunisia's religious center of Kairouan to prevent a conference by a radical Islamist movement that has been implicated in attacks around the country. (AP Photo/Nawfel)

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — A Tunisian feminist who scandalized her country by posting topless photos of herself online has been arrested after allegedly sneaking into Tunisia's holiest city disguised in a veil, then trying to get undressed during a protest.

On Sunday, Amina Tyler — a 19-year-old member of the Ukrainian feminist group FEMEN, which uses nudity in its protests — passed through heavy security and checkpoints to enter the city ofKairouan, where police were preventing hardline conservative Islamists from holding an annual conference.

There she unveiled her bleach blonde hair and cutoff jeans, scrawled "FEMEN" on the wall of a cemetery near the city's main mosque, and attempted to take off her clothes, her lawyer Radhia Nasraoui quoted police as saying.

The protest enraged local residents who converged on her, and police took her into custody.

In a video of the incident shown on the Tunisian news website Nawaat, people yell "get out" at her as police usher her into a waiting van.

"She is dishonoring us. We will protect our town, but a dirty girl like her shouldn't come among us," one resident screams at the camera.

"We are all Muslims," Tyler says to one man, who replies: "You are no Muslim. Don't come to Kairouan."

The Interior Ministry said Monday she may be charged with conducting "provocative acts" when she appears in court on Tuesday.

"It is an act of provocation and it is against the morals and traditions of Tunisian society, which is a Muslim society," Interior Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Aroui told journalists, without elaborating on what those acts were.

Her mother, Wafa, told The Associated Press her daughter needed help and was being treated by a psychiatrist.

"She suffers from psychological problems," she said on the phone, tearfully. "I am very worried for my daughter. I'm afraid she will be condemned by the court."

Tunisia is the birthplace of the pro-democracy uprisings known as the Arab Spring. Its transition to democracy and how it deals with the questions of Islam, politics and social movements such as feminism are being closely watched around the region.

Tyler has become the latest episode in the battle over the country's identity after the overthrow of a suffocating dictatorship in January 2011 opened the way for competing religious and secular groups.

By choosing Kairouan, Tunisia's main religious site, Tyler stepped into an extremely sensitive situation as the government was moving to confront the rising power of ultraconservative groups.

Ansar al-Shariah, a group whose members have been implicated in violent attacks on art galleries and cinemas, as well as the U.S. embassy, had announced it would hold their annual conference in Kairouan but refused to apply for permission.

The government, which is run by moderate Islamists and had been long accused by the opposition of coddling the extremists, announced that the conference was banned and backed up their decision with 11,000 police and soldiers to stop the conservatives, known as salafis, from gathering in the city.

Shortly before Tyler attempted her protest, there were clashes between police and salafis in the center of Kairouan that had to be dispersed with tear gas.

In Tunis, hundreds of salafis also clashed with police, leaving one protester dead.

Authorities said 274 people were arrested for their involvement in the violence in both cities.

The government's conflict with the salafis also comes as the army has been hunting al-Qaida linked militants in the mountainous Jebel Chambi region near the Algerian border for the last month.

So far 40 people have been arrested in sweeps through the area, said Aroui, the ministry spokesman.

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Associated Press reporter Paul Schemm contributed to this report from Rabat, Morocco.